Boullion withdraws from Le Mans
Jean-Christophe Boullion had withdrawn from the Le Mans 24 Hours following his accident on Wednesday, leaving Stuart Hall and Emmanuel Collard as the only drivers in the new Pescarolo 03-Judd.
Boullion was left with pain in his ribs after the high-speed accident and, having returned to action on Thursday, took the decision to stand down from his role for the remainder of the weekend.
With only two drivers therefore qualified to drive the car, Pescarolo finds itself in the same position at the Kolles team back in 2009 when Andre Lotterer and Charles Zwolsman had to drive alone when Narain Karthikeyan suffered a broken collarbone.
"It was a very violent accident," Boullion said. "The wheels locked and the car instantly spun. It hit the guard-rail ahead of me hard, then took off across the track to hit head on the barriers on the other side of the track. As I started to feel the car lifting, I was wondering how it was all going to end but luckily it didn't go behind the barrier!
"The team did an incredible job to get the car back together for Thursday evening, congratulations to all. I drove again yesterday evening but quickly realised that I had pain in my ribs, which was stopping me from breathing properly. I said to Henri that it wasn't fair on the team for me to run ten seconds off the pace because I wasn't fully fit. Because of that, I didn't run yesterday evening and I didn't qualify."
The car will start from 13th on the grid, while the Pescarolo-run Dome-Judd lines up tenth despite an accident in the Porsche Curves for Seiji Ara during Thursday's final session, which caused a brief red flag stoppage.
